Attention to Detail Matters

By JULIA WERDIGIER

March 24, 2013

Garry Hogarth is chief executive of Agent Provocateur, a maker of luxury lingerie.

Q. Before starting your career in retailing, you had other plans, didn’t you?

A. Yes, I wanted to be a tennis player. And I thought I could be. But I played a match in the United States against an American, who was ranked 38 in America, and he blew me off the court. That match made me realize that I better do something else.

I was always interested in fashion and design, so I went to work for a company that did accessories and airline blankets. After that I decided to start my own business. I didn’t really have any money, but I sold my car.

Q. What made you think you might be better off doing something on your own?

A. I thought I could make more money. And it’s the only way to do what you want. Fortunately, I knew some people in Russia, so I went on a trade mission to Moscow. It was in the days when the Soviet Union was buying for the country, so I got an order for two million scarves, and that really set me off. I built the business from there and eventually started to supply scarves to Marks & Spencer. They became my biggest customer.

Q. How did you manage such fast growth?

A. It was quite difficult because you’re always catching up. It was nice at the beginning because I knew every single product. As the company got bigger, I didn’t quite know everything, and I found it a bit frustrating. But I learned you have to delegate.

Q. What else did you learn?

A. When I was starting my business, an old friend of mine phoned me up and said, “Garry, you’re going to have lots of decisions to make every day. Make them quickly and decisively and if you get 7 out of 10 right, you’re doing great.” I’ve always followed that. People should never be worried about making mistakes. I like people making their own decisions, and I encourage that here. If they make the decision for the right reason and it goes wrong, I don’t blame them.

Q. How long did it take you to decide to come to Agent Provocateur?

A. Not long at all. I had sold my business and I spent quite a lot of time in Barbados, and I had a call from Joe Corré, the original founder of A.P. He said, “Garry, I have this great company, but it’s losing money. I need someone to help me make money.” I bought some of the product, and I took it to a friend who was a manufacturer in Morocco. I said, “Make this stuff for me — I need to know what it should cost.” It turned out that Agent Provocateur was vastly overpaying, so I knew I could make more money of it.

Q. When things aren’t going that well, how do you cope?

A. I’ve always been quite calm in dealing with problems. You just got to take them one at a time. And it’s about having a vision. I started selling woven scarves. Suddenly woven scarves went out of fashion and people only wanted knitted scarves. So people were saying, “Oh, we’re in trouble.” And I said, “Well, let’s do knitted scarves as well.”

Margaret Thatcher said there was no such thing as luck in business. It was readiness meeting opportunity.

Q. When you started to get into retailing, you were working with your father. Is he one of your mentors?

A. Yes. He was a character. He left school at 13, worked in a factory in Scotland, eventually got his own business and he never borrowed money. He was a pretty tight, Scottish guy. Never had an overdraft, and he taught me to be careful with money. I like to spend money, but I never spend money I don’t have.

Q. What else did you learn from your father?

A. He was a really honest guy, and he would shake hands on a deal and he would never go back on it. I think that’s really important. I like to try and deal with people that I trust. When I started my business and it was growing fast, I had a glove supplier, a chap called Tom Gluckman from New York. My business was growing so fast that I didn’t really have enough money to finance it. So I went to him and said, “Tom, I’m giving all these orders, but I’m worried about financing,” and he said, “O.K., I’ll give you 90 days’ credit.” He helped me grow my business because he trusted me, and he’s still a close friend of mine.

Q. Was there anyone else who inspired you?

A. Ray Kelvin, the founder of Ted Baker, the clothing brand. He was opening his first shop in Covent Garden in London, and he had all the press coming and it was a big deal. But on the afternoon when everybody was coming in, he canceled it. The stock was there, the shop was done, catering was there, but when he saw the shirts, the embossed tissue paper to wrap them in hadn’t arrived. So he’d have to use normal tissue paper. So he canceled the event because he said it wasn’t perfect.

I thought he was mad. Maybe it was extreme, but that’s the way he’s built his business. Attention to detail.

Q. How do you apply that in your current company?

A. We have ridiculous attention to detail. The way the stores look and the carpet and the curtains and the fittings and everything, I mean we’re very, very careful about the brand because it’s about the integrity of the brand. It’s why we don’t — on the main collection — wholesale it. We want people to have this whole lifestyle experience when they come in.

Q. What are you looking for in people when you interview them?

A. I don’t just want somebody who wants a job or is looking to enhance their C.V. I want somebody that really wants to work for Agent Provocateur. I want to see a bit of passion. It’s quite a tough culture here with very strong women — 90 percent of the people employed here are women. We make a big deal about the product being designed by women for women.